Davos is played by Liam Cunningham.
I think Brienne looks great - looks like a guy. I think once we see her tower over the other actors at 6’ 3", that would make an even bigger impression of how manly she is.
MattN
3383
I hope she doesnt read the forums.
Well, she was practically cast by fans - who knew she was very pretty when not given a 10-cent haircut and rubbed down with dirt. The issue(s) were more making her look plausibly ugly-duckling and plausibly burly.
Tyrion’s appearance is a pretty good indicator that “ugly in the books” can be taken with a spoonful of salt.
New production diary up where they talk about filming in Iceland:
http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/production-diary/2012/2/10/in-production-iceland.html
Where you also get to see a bit of Qhorin Halfhand.
— Alan
New invitation to the set video
Got cool new shots in there.
Clay
3387
The Oatmeal’s take on Game of Thrones is pretty good:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
I think that’s more a take on justifying piracy than anything else.
It may be justifying piracy, but it would serve studios well to realize this is probably happening over and over. The old models of slow dvd releases should be over. They are throwing money away in favor of a dying industry. If a person can literally obtain your product nowhere but illegally, I don’t understand why the companies are betting on morals above convenience.
The cartoonist has done stuff before about how much his own stuff is pirated (by lame fly-by-night webcomic recycling outfits that all your dumbest friends on facebook go to), so while one might find the argument familiar and disagree with it, it’s probably the straightforward kvetch it purports to be.
Premium cable channels have no interest in making their stuff available on Blu-ray/DVD/Itunes quickly because it would most likely lead to a reduction in their subscriber base, which is where they make the lion’s share of their money.
Plus, HBO has more than enough great programming to justify subscribing.
Clay
3392
I don’t pirate anything. I don’t even buy used games. But I also don’t want to pay $100+/month for cable so that I can get 999 channels that I don’t care about and 1 that I want to watch. With 50% of cable fees going to support sports programming, count me out.
We cancelled our cable 2 months ago and the ONLY shows that we haven’t found a legitimate way to watch are the HBO shows that we care about. Everything else we can stream via a legit outlet on the Internet or we can purchase through iTunes/Amazon.
I would happily pay HBO $10 per episode to watch Game of Thrones season 2. But I can’t, so I won’t watch it until it’s out on iTunes in a year or more, or I’ll find a local bar/venue that is showing it.
What I’m not going to do is to pay Time Warner large amounts of money for content that I don’t want.
I think the point of the cartoon is that there are a lot of people in the same boat and that many of them have no problem finding the show via bittorrent or some other illegal method.
The way people watch their preferred television content is changing. The companies that adapt and figure out how to give the customers what they want will thrive. The ones that don’t will continue to be victims of piracy.
Blips
3393
Are the production videos only available to americans? They’re just all appearing blank to me.
edit: n/m, looks like they’re available on YouTube too.
You can’t just give in to the customers willy nilly. A company would never, ever make money that way. You have to find a model that works for your company, lets you make money (and more shows) while attempting to appeal to your customers.
So far, HBO doesn’t really seem to have an issue the way they present their programs. Regular core programming, On Demand, Go, syndication and releases on disc seems to work perfectly well for them.
Doesn’t a premium pay service have some right to decide how customers could see its programming and hence not lose money by going straight to streaming services?
— Alan
I don’t see how having an option for Clay (or Inman) who really aren’t interested in buying cable really costs them. Syndication will collapse because every single person who would watch it in syndication will have bought a dvd or a streamed copy?
Does that seriously make sense in 2012? If mass (mass!) torrenting of the series within hours of each episode airing isn’t making it worthless for syndication, I really don’t see how Amazon dvds a month later are going to do worse. Let alone many months later. Where is the advantage?
Because syndication is still lucrative to this day. If it’s still lucrative for the showmakers at this point in time, what would it take to kill it off?
The answer? Nothing.
— Alan
What I’m asking is how could DVD sales “harm” syndication? It’s clearly pretty robust in that it’s surviving ubiquitous internet bootlegging. It seems wildly counterintuitive that a timely dvd release - timely by the standards of people under the age of 40 - would do a single jot to mess up any existing revenue stream.
Warning
3398
I thought you were being sarcastic at first. Now I realize you were serious.
No I suppose you can’t “give in to your customers” although I was raised with the whole “the customer is always right” philosophy. The problem is, if you don’t give your customers what they want in a way that is appealing to them, a significant percentage will find some other way to get it. Hence bigtimeawesometorrentbucket.com from the cartoon.
Razgon
3399
Anecdotal but hell, I know a middleaged lesbian couple (yes, one is hot!) who torrents tv shows they really want to see. Everyone (anecdotally) does it nowadays.
Its become so damn commonplace that its something that the networks has to pay attention to, and try and perhaps get their shows out and available sooner if they want to retain the interest for DVD’s and the like.
Agreed, I loved it. I fit exactly this scenario - no cable, would like to watch Game of Thrones (legally), but there’s no way it’s worth spending the money to get cable and pay for HBO. So I ended up “borrowing” the series from a friend who has HBO and had it DVR’d. (Once you get the process worked out, and assuming you have willing friends, that’s even easier than torrents.)
